


Prettier Words Than Jealousy

by Grimmalie



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Cutesy, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oops, adorbs, realized belatedly that i misnamed the first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 05:09:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5193437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimmalie/pseuds/Grimmalie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to "Jealousy is Such an Ugly Word."</p><p>Natasha and Clint have coffee. It's a thing they do. Natasha is used to Clint showing up bruised, bleeding, limping...but not this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prettier Words Than Jealousy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pippen2112](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pippen2112/gifts).



Natasha Romanoff had gotten used to seeing Clint Barton in all states. Bloody, bruised, beaten…she’d had to patch him up more than once. But she hadn’t seen him quite like…this. He grinned like a maniac, adding way too much sugar to his coffee. Just watching him gave her cavities. She cringed.

 

“So, you want to explain?”

 

“What?” Clint asked, glib little puppy that he was. Natasha didn’t even deign to roll her eyes. she just stared at him until, inevitably, he cracked.

 

“All right,” he said, tossing back his coffee-flavored sugar. “You remember your mission in Kiev? It started then…”

 

\--

 

_With the freaking dog. Clint wasn’t sure what pissed him off more: that Lucky got more excited to see that brainwashed son of a bitch every day than he was to see his owner, or that Bucky greeted the damn dog first. Even if Lucky was in the bedroom snoozing and Clint was in the kitchen wearing a frilly apron cooking a big, fat, Russian goulash, Bucky went looking for his best buddy in the whole wide world._

_Clint was tempted to give Bucky’s shrink an unsatisfactory report purely out of vengeance. Not jealousy. Vengeance._

_(Although, seriously, the guy had been sleeping on some skeezy park bench before Clint took him in so why the hell did he like the dog more? And the same could be said for Lucky.)_

_So, when Bucky was away on some mission stopping Alien Zombie Nazis or whatever the hell he got up to out there, Clint appreciated the extra time he got with Lucky. They watched cartoons, ate pizza together, Lucky barfed the pizza all over the bathroom mat, Clint cleaned it up…it was like old times. But inevitably, the mission ended. Bucky would be back. Clint had managed to get his alone time with his dog again. But Bucky was going to come back, and it would go back to the way it was. So Clint did the most reasonable thing he could think of._

_He asked Kate to babysit the dog._

_Predictably, Bucky returned and immediately noticed Lucky’s absence. With little more than a grunt to greet Clint, he wandered into the living room, the bedroom, the bathroom…_

_“Barton!” he shouted, stalking into the kitchen like some overgrown panther. “Lucky’s missing. We need to find him.”_

_“Nope,” Clint said as he brewed a fresh pot of coffee, nevermind that it was six in the evening. “Kate’s got him.”_

_Bucky fixed him with that look that was either a glare or just a look. Sometimes it was hard to tell with him. Then, in that careful tone that said “I worked for the KGB. I trained the Black Widow. I can’t number the ways I can murder you”, he asked:_

_“Why?”_

_Clint shrugged. “Cause.”_

_It wasn’t immediately clear whether or not Bucky was going to accept that answer. Then the guy did something more terrifying than that time Clint saw him disembowel a disgustingly anatomically correct Doombot with a pair of chopsticks. He leaned back against the counter, cool and collected, and crossed his arms. Calm Bucky was potentially more terrifying than wild, brainwashed maniac Bucky. Then he did something more terrifying. He inclined his head and rose his brows, just like Steve._

_“Barton,” he said, then tried again. “Clint. Is this because you’re jealous?”_

_“What?” Clint slipped, catching himself on the coffee pot, knocking the scalding coffee all over himself. “Fuck!”_

_Bucky’s lip twitched._

_“Is this because you’re jealous I pay so much attention to the dog?”_

_“I’m not-“_

_“You’re not good at hiding it,” Bucky said, and Clint felt suddenly as though he was standing buck ass nude in front of the guy. Which he wished he could say had never happened but, well, small spaces and all._

_“Look, it’s not—“_

_But Clint didn’t get to finish. It was a little hard to focus on language with Bucky’s unexpectedly soft lips pressed against his own, Bucky’s stubble tickling his cheek, Bucky’s musk and gunpowder scent tickling his nose…_

_\--_

CRASH!

 

Natasha’s mug crashed to the ground. For the first time in her many years of knowing Clint Barton, he had well and truly caught her of guard.

 

Clint grinned that big, shit-eating grin of his and poured another mug of coffee.

 

\--

 

_Clint pulled back, his mouth bobbin open and closed._

_“I…I’m not gay,” he squeaked out._

_Bucky crowded close to him, planting his hands on the counter, effectively trapping Clint in place. To his own surprise, Clint didn’t want him to move._

_“I know,” Bucky murmured._

_“I’m not bi, either,” Clint said. “Or pan.”_

_“You sure about that?” Bucky murmured, his voice dropping a solid octave lower. He leaned in and…good God, that scent made Clint’s insides swirl and shake and…_

_“I wouldn’t be against testing it,” Clint said and, damn it all, his hands moved against his will to rest on Bucky’s waist. Fuck, he was so close to feeling up the Winter Soldier. This was going to get awkward if it didn’t end up really good._

_Bucky chuckled, a deep throaty chuckle that sounded pretty friggin’ alarming from a guy who walked around looking like Grumpy Cat most of the time._

_“Good thing Lucky’s out of the house,” Bucky chuckled. “Wouldn’t want him to see what’s about to happen here.”_

\--

 

Natasha couldn’t have looked more perturbed if she’d tried. And she was probably one of the greatest actresses the world had never known that it had known.

 

“You’re telling me James is the one who-”

 

“Hey, aren’t you at least going to be surprised I kissed him back?”

 

Natasha was almost relieved he’d said something stupid. It was familiar. Gave her some place to go with this. She gave him a sour look and arched a brow.

 

“You know I bat for multiple teams, Clint. I recognize my own.”

 

Clint sighed. “You now, I always thought that meant you were a double agent.”

 

“Astounding,” Natasha said dryly. “What a brain you’ve got.”

 

Clint just grinned in response. Apparently he’d finally developed a real superpower: Invulnerability to sarcasm.

 

“Clint, that still doesn’t explain…”

 

“I wasn’t done.

 

\--

 

_It wasn’t long after that first kiss that they gave up all pretenses and started sharing the bed. Bucky claimed it was just because it felt natural, why not, he’d always suspected Clint wanted to… But Clint knew the truth. Nightmares were rough, and a warm body made it better._

_The problem was that Bucky wasn’t really into the ‘warm’ part. And beyond the occasional make out session, he didn’t particularly seem eager to go for more. Now that Clint had accepted a few…things about himself…it was annoying as hell._

_So, one night, when he was pretty sure Bucky was asleep, he decided to take matters into his own hands. Of course, the son of a bitch liked to sleep on his back, so Clint wasn’t going to get actual contact, but it would be better than what he’d had. So he scooted across the mattress, slow and steady, not wanting to wake the guy. Last time that had happened, well. It hadn’t been pretty._

_The mattress shifted. Clint froze._

_“What’re you doing?” Bucky asked, his voice thick with sleep. As if Clint had any intention of admitting a damn thing out loud. Odds were, he guy would either go all Russian assassin or all Depression-era on him and shut it down immediately. And Clint wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction._

_“Nothing,” he insisted. “Go back to sleep.”_

_There was a grunt, and then a snore. That bastard. Did he honestly believe ‘nothing’? Did Clint have to do everything around here?_

_He waited a couple of minutes, then shifted again, inching a little closer._

_What he hadn’t taken into account was that he slept on the right side of the bed, and Bucky’s metal arm was the one that faced him, so when he felt the cold metal on his bare skin-_

_“Eep!”_

_Clint jumped. Geez, did the guy keep his arm in the freezer before he went to bed?_

_And there was Bucky, the smug bastard, lying back and staring up at him with an amused expression on his face._

_“So…what was_ that? _” he asked._

_Dammit. Clint scowled and slumped back against the pillows._

_“Nothing,” he insisted petulantly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the beginnings of a smirk at the corners of his lips. Clint rolled over, just so he wouldn’t have to look at it. He was just in the process of working himself into a good sulk when he felt a real human arm wrap around his middle and warm lips pressed against the back of his neck._

_“All you had to do is ask,” Bucky said, pressing his body flush against Clint’s. That was when Clint felt something poking into his leg. Well. If all he had to do was ask…_

_\--_

Natasha shook her head. That wasn’t exactly a surprise. He’d always been such an aggressive sub.

 

“Clint, that still doesn’t explain-”

 

“I’m telling you the grand story of how we grew closer,” Clint said. “Just bear with me.”

 

\--

 

_It had been a hell of an explosion. Tony had packed enough shit into that arrowhead to take down a small building, and he’d known that as soon as he shot the arrow, he needed to get moving. Except that was never how it worked out, was it? There was always something in the way to kink up a good plan. In this case, the fire escape had been trashed. Clint had been trying to find a second route when the shockwave hit._

_Everything got pretty blurry after that. He remembered vague images, heat, vibrations shaking him down to his bones. But no sound._

_It was only in the hospital, when he was bandaged and settled in one of those hospital beds with the starched, white sheets that every hospital ever seemed to have. There was a doctor in front of him. Her lips were moving, but no sound came out. Clint didn’t focus on her enough to read her words. There was a young man next to her signing away. Clint didn’t focus on him, either. Eventually, they left. Bucky showed up with a wheelchair, but he didn’t bother trying to talk._

_It was weird, being rolled into his house like this. Not so long ago, he’d led a shell shocked Winter Soldier into his house, introduced him to his dog, fed him pizza. Now the tables had turned. He was the guest in his own house._

_Night came. Clint slept on the couch. Bucky came and took his hand, but Clint rolled over and counted the threads in the fabric of the sofa, estimated the length in inches, then centimeters of each of the tears with stuffing coming out. Eventually, Bucky left._

_There were flowers. Occasionally, he saw people at the door. Bucky blocked their entrance. Mouths moved, no sound came out. Afterwards there were flowers and casseroles and an incredibly well-meaning if horribly crafted quiver from the kids downstairs._

_Starting on the second day, Bucky started disappearing for a few hours at a time. Just when Clint started to worry, he’d show up again with burgers or burritos. Then, he’d clean the house, take out the trash, and force Clint to take a shower._

_As much as it was easy to pretend that he was too numb to notice, Clint was aware of exactly how many days had passed since he’d come home from the hospital. Thirteen on the hour. That was when Bucky knelt down and started moving his hands, right in front of Clint’s face so he couldn’t ignore them._

**_It’s time to get moving, Clint._ **

****

_Clint stiffened, staring in shock. Bucky’s lip twitched in that grim little half smile of his as he signed again._

**_I thought it was a good idea to learn some banana. I’m still learning._ **

****

_Clint wasn’t sure whether Bucky really got that word wrong or if he was trying to force a reaction, but he couldn’t help it. He smiled. Which made Bucky smile even more._

**_Go shower. You smell. Don’t worry. I’m here to take care of you._ **

****

_Clint’s heart throbbed. For the first time since all of this happened, he thought back to Barney. To his parents. To the first time this had happened. Clumsily, he began to sign, his bandages crinkling around his joints._

**_I’m a burden. You’re stuck._ **

****

_Bucky frowned. He probably didn’t understand all the words, but he must have inferred their meaning because he leaned forward and caught Clint’s fingers, kissing the scabby, bruised joints before signing._

**_I love you. I’m here to take care of you. I want to be here._ **

_Clint stared at him, his eyes wide. They hadn’t used the L word before. Well, technically they weren’t using it now. Not verbally, anyway. But it meant the same thing. His eyes began to burn and, God help him, he started to cry like a fucking baby in front of one of the world’s scariest assassins. And said assassin held him and rubbed his back like he might hug a fucking baby’s and suddenly they were kissing, and the lack of sound was still weird and terrifying, but Bucky somehow made it better._

_\--_

Natasha nodded, drumming her fingers against the table.

 

“And I’m guessing after that, he convinced you to get your hearing aid.”

 

Clint tapped the little purple device behind his ear. “Yeah. Took a little getting used to, but he’s shitty at signing.”

 

“I’m glad he got you out in the world again, too. But that still doesn’t explain THIS.”

 

She pointed directly at the little, tattoo’d black band around his left ring finger. Clint pursed his lips and held it up.

 

“Well, a real ring would have thrown my aim off. Too damn heavy. This was better.”

 

Natasha glowered. “Clint…”

 

Clint shrugged. “Hey, once he said he was happy to be stuck with me, I had to see how serious he was. And let me tell you, that was a fun night in Tijuana.”

 

Natasha rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Guess I’ve got to get you a wedding gift, then.”

 

Clint poured himself another cup of coffee and winked at her.

 

“Make it purple.”


End file.
